First Draft

Sweet Jesus, These People Are Insane

Fuck you guys. This is bullshit.

Well, it's February in Wisconsin. And that means it's time for the Polar Plunge. That's right. Every year, a bunch of totally insane motherfuckers jump into a hole cut into the ice as a way to raise money for the Special Olympics.

This year, friend of the blog and regular commenter Hobbes is taking the plunge. So throw her some cheddar so she can get wetter.

Also, our good friends the Mad Rollin Dolls also have a team jump. Help them out.

If you're interested in other individual donations, check out Andi or Patty.

Go give some money, bitches!

It's for a good cause, people. If you've got some spare change to toss this way, please do. I know the economy sucks and the world's caving in around us, but this is one of those little things that we do to make life better for the people served by this organization; also, it increases the total amount of joy in the world, which makes it a better place for all of us. Cough up a buck, you cheap bastards.

Secret Santa REVEAL!

Santas, unmask yourselves. 

A. 

The kids are alright: Star Witness

Because we could all use some inspiration:

These two high school students, Kate and Janelle, are seniors in the arts program at Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School (PCVS), located in downtown Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. Earlier in the fall, district school board trustees voted to close the old (founded in 1827!) downtown fixture next year and move its highly-regarded Integrated Arts program to larger more modern Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School. The decision to close down the much-beloved PCVS sparked protest after protest in the community but it didn't seem much of anything was going to reverse the trustees' decision. A few weeks ago, just trying to draw more attention to efforts of their peers and the community at large to keep the school open, Kate and Janelle recorded their video, using the reverb in a PCVS stairwell to make Neko Case's already-atmospheric Star Witness sound even more haunting.

 

It worked. The video started getting forwarded around, someone tweeted it to Case, she re-tweeted, the video went viral, the story got blogged, re-blogged, and picked up in the media. To paraphrase Margaret Mead, thoughtful, concerned citizens (and teenage girls singing like angels) for the win!

On Monday, more progress: the Ontario Minister of Education appointed a special facilitator to review the policy and process behind the school trustees' decision to close PCVS.  Follow the PCVS story here.

 

Secret Santa Reminder

Tomorrow's the last day to get your SS gift into the e-mail. 

We'll do a thread on the 22nd where the Santas can reveal themselves! 

A. 

Reminder: Santa Entries End Today!

It's the last day to get yourself on the Secret Santa list! 

A. 

In The Jar

Jurassic Pork could use some spare cash, if you have any lying around. 

This economy ain't getting no better. 

A. 

'I don't like bullies'

Recall effort begins: 

On a recent weekday evening, about a dozen people gathered at a small clubhouse on Milwaukee's east side. These middle aged men and women came to be trained on how to circulate petitions to get the signatures needed to recall Walker. The mere mention Walker's name sparks a visceral negative reaction among them.

For retired police officer John Harrington, the anger runs deep. He says he opposes the state's new law requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls.

"The voter ID thing bothered me a whole lot," he said. "Besides I've had a lifelong aversion to anybody that beats up on people. I don't like bullies. I don't like bullies with money who have an office."

And that's about it. That's all this is. It's picking on the weaker kid to make your buddies laugh. Trouble for you is, the weaker kid is the club of the most of us these days, and as Hecate said last Tuesday when Ohio went down, "We are many. They are few." 

You can contribute here. 

A. 

Blanket the Earth

Rude Pundit has some ideas about how best to spend Black Friday.

Go forth and assist if you can.

A.

Guns + Penises + Anti-Recall Measures = JOBS!

In his inaugural address, Governor Deadeyes repeated to the point of laughability that Wisconsin was “open for business.” The importance of jobs could not be understated. In fact, if you played a drinking game with his speeches, you’d be better off taking “times Walker is on camera” than “jobs” for your drinking cue.

In calling a special session of the legislature, Walker promised that he would “focus like a laser” on jobs. Apparently, lasers must first do other things before they can hit that jobs target.

 Over the past few months, the legislature, which is controlled by Walker’s own party, has taken on a number of bills, none of which has anything to do with jobs.

Republicans have attempted to protect GOP targets from recall by trying to use the newer, more Republican-friendly redistricting lines.

They tried to make it harder for people to recall state officials by proposing a bill that required all recall petitions be notarized.

They put teachers' jobs in the hands of disaffected youth, by allowing for the use of standardized tests to help decide whether to discipline or fire teachers.(Did anyone ever take those tests seriously? I never did. Tried making patterns out of the dots a couple years in a row. Went from idiot to genius to idiot. I was then found out and my parents nearly throttled me.)

The senate passed a bill that demanded teachers in public schools promote marriage and teach abstinence-only efforts in sex-ed classes. (Question: What happens to the gay kids in the class who are told that marriage is important but can’t marry under our current law? Answer: They need to be less gay. Duh.)

They made a run at capping attorney fees in consumer litigation. Of course, it took the good folks at the Journal-Sentinel to point out that the representative who proposed the bill is actually on the “pay up” end of the stick in just such a claim.

In an effort of bipartisanship, the Assembly pushed forth a bill that would expand the rights of homeowners to kill people. (Because, hey, if we can’t get together on our right to bust a cap in someone’s ass, what has this country come to?)

This list could go on and on of “jobs-free” job-creation bills, but the most laughable one requires special attention. The Assembly debated for more than nine hours, deep into the night, over a contentious amendment that would remove race as a consideration for a college grant program.

 The problem? The state’s Higher Educational Aids Board stopped using race as such a factor about a year ago.

In other words, our legislature is wasting time arguing about something that doesn’t exist. And, to be fair, this amendment was proposed by Peggy Krusick, a Democrat, which goes to show that stupidity has no party affiliation in many cases.

Jobs have become for Walker what terrorism was for Bush: the brush-back pitch he throws at anyone who questions anything he’s doing.

Want to destroy unions? Hey, it’ll create jobs!

Want people to get angry at state workers? Those guys have cushy jobs!

Want to get kids to stop fucking? It’s about jobs! Hand… blow… rim… et cetera.

However, job creation has to be more than a sleight of hand, a statistical maneuver and a bumper-sticker slogan. People need to go to work. They need to make real money. They need to start picking themselves off the ground again as they begin to rebuild their shattered lives.

People elected you, Scott Walker, because… Hell, I don’t know… Why the hell did they elect you? I could ponder this for days…

Anyway, when you stood up and yelled about Wisconsin being “open for business,” people seemed to like it. They gave you the benefit of the doubt about your desire to see this state chip away a the unemployment rate. When you said everyone needed to focus like a laser on jobs, people seemed to like that too.

So worry less about keeping your job and start doing your job. Don’t worry about who can shoot what at whom, whether they’re packing a .44 Magnum or a Magnum condom. Stop thinking about whether some lawyer or a black kid is getting too much money.

Find that laser and aim better.

Texas fires: how to help

Just a few places to donate:

American Red Cross of Central Texas

Austin Pets Alive!

Capital Area Food Bank 

Austin Disaster Relief Network 

Catholic Diocese of Austin

More updated info available on Twitter: #centraltxfires or #txfires

via The Statesman:

118,400: Acres burned in 181 fires in the past seven days.

700: Approximate number of homes burned by wildfires in the past seven days, about the same as the previous nine months.

121: Number of mutual-aid system firefighters from across the state who are currently fighting the Central Texas fires, using 72 fire engines and 18 command vehicles.

40: Texas Forest Service aircraft deployed statewide, including 15 single-engine air tankers, 12 helicopters and 13 aerial supervision aircraft assets deployed to multiple fires.

8: Texas Military Forces resource groups deployed so far, including 2 CH-47 Chinook helicopters, 3 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters assisting with fires in Bastrop County, 1 UH-60 Blackhawk staged in Austin to fight central Texas fires, 2 UH-60 Blackhawks assisting with the fires in Colorado County, and 3 ground wildfire support packages consisting of 4 dozers and 16 personnel each.

In addition, Texas Department of Public Safety emergency management personnel, highway patrol troopers, air assets and a mobile communications center have been deployed to Bastrop County, and the Texas Department of Transportation is providing personnel, equipment and fuel to responders. 

(If you feel the need to opine that Texans caught in these fires don't deserve your righteous offer of help, take that shit somewhere else.)

Rising Tide 6 Webcast

Okey dokey, it's the big day. This is RT's first webcast and hopefully everything will go relatively smoothly. Click here from 9AM CST on or forever hold your peace.

Latest shameless Rising Tide plug

Long time, no plug. The conference is coming up this Saturday and may well be the best yet since I'm only going to be onstage to introduce David Simon. Here's another tidbit: Athenae will be attending and staying in Dr. A and my guest room. Oscar usually likes to crush our guest's legs so she has that to look forward to.

Anyhoo, if you're interested in attending or donating to the conference click here. There will be a web cast and I'll post that information when it's available.

Below is a clip from the WWL-TV morning news wherein anchor Sally Ann Roberts interviews my friends and fellow organizers Bart Everson and Alli Dejong. WWL-TV is the big kahuna of local stations: its morning show kills the Today Show in the ratings. So, Sally Ann is the queen of the morning in NOLA as well as Robin Roberts' older sister:

 

The Week To Come and What's At Risk

WI "Budget Repair Bill" Protest (Feb 20-24?) Pt. 3 from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.

 

Tuesday night we'll be crack-vanning the Wisconsin recall election results, as well as hosting Scout/Jude/Doc updates from Wisconsin all day (or whenever they can check in amidst the madness). Be here, and follow along on Twitter, and generally watch, because this is something we've not seen in a while.

It's hard to overstate the importance of this. Phila wrote something which is deservedly making the rounds, about what we consider security and what we consider danger:

I hold this truth to be self-evident: Most of us will never find ourselves on the business end of an Islamic radical. Many of us, however, will struggle to stay housed and fed if we're too old to work, or we fall seriously ill. "National defense" that focuses on cartoon figures of ethnic menace, as opposed to the prosaic and preventable disasters that cause most of the actual suffering and death in this country, is a cruel joke, and I suspect its extremely dark humor is not entirely lost on heartless neo-feudalist chatterboxes like Lieberman and Coburn.

There were a lot of stories after 9/11, about how people who had previously thought they were safe now felt unsafe. I wanted to find everyone thus quoted and drag them down to where I worked, to where people needed no crash course in coping, to where people didn't suddenly feel unsafe because they had no feeling of safety to lose. We have built any feeling of safety we have on the backs of people like that, and presumed they shared our feelings of entitlement and security. Why should they, when we share none of their pain?

What happens in Wisconsin isn't just in Wisconsin. I have this tattooed on my arm now, no shit: Our fate is your fate. People are threatened, right now. People are scared, right now. What kind of world are we building? What kind of place are we living in? Before, in the Bush years, I felt like there was a genuine schism, between the kind of country Americans thought they had and the kind of country America was.

Now, watching Walker and Kasich and Scott, watching the Austerity Olympics, watching Obama running scared from every Teabagger he sees, getting the pointy end of smug Republican soliloquys about spending on programs most of them are in no danger of needing, I feel like most people know what kind of country we are. They know we're mean and paralyzed and small. They know we've talked ourselves into being unable to move, and either they can't see how we can get out of it, or they don't care if we ever do.

This is how it works: You start out just not doing one thing because it's too hard, and pretty soon you can't do anything. We are a country that cannot button our shirt in the morning because we actually cannot conceive of the process by which we would do that, no matter how many shots of brandy we take to steady our nerves. And into that steps a group of people that says, no more. That says yes, we know how things like this are supposed to work, and we're supposed to lie back and take it, and fuck that basically because no fuck no not today not while I'm alive this is just not how it's going to go and the way I know that is that I'm going to make it go otherwise and sit DOWN, asshole, I'm here now and your turn is over.

Into this national paralysis, into this world in which the one thing we cannot do is the only thing we really have to do, walked tens of thousands. On bikes and in cabs and on tractors and on foot, from sunrise to sunset, saying shove your war on America. Saying we are not going to be like this anymore.

They could have stayed home and written hectoring opinion pieces about how Americans and particularly kids today are just lazy and can't ever protest like the Egyptians or Greeks. There's quite the market for that these days. Instead of lecturing other people about how to stand up to power, they went out there and did it.

That needs to win right now. That needs to show, right now, to everybody who's threatened and scared by everyday, ordinary, animal greed that there is more than one way for things to go. That just because some knob in a suit on TV says we can't, we can't, we can't doesn't make it so. That inevitable's just a dare. That there's never too little time or energy to help others. That courage isn't a bowl of sugar with a bottom you can hit. That all actions are choices, and all choices are chances, and all you have to do is make them and the ground beneath your feet will shake.

That we don't back down. We don't back off. We don't back up.

Not. One. Inch.

A.

Rising Tide 6 Brass Band Panel

  


It's shameless plug time again, y'all. I'm not only one of the organizers of Rising Tide but a little birdie tells me that we're going to have a record turn out of First Draft bloggers this year.

Anyway, we've decided to do something completely different to end the conference, a panel discussing the NOLA brass band tradition that concludes with a performance from the TBC (To Be Continued) Brass Band. Here's how Cousin Pat described it at the RT blog:

The Brass Bands Panel will feature Lawrence Rawlins, band director of Roots of Music; Alejandro de los Rios, producer of the Brass Roots documentary; members of the TBC Brass Band Edward “Juicy” Jackson, Joe Maize and Sean Michael Roberts; moderated by writer Deborah Cotton and followed by a performance by the TBC Brass Band.

The conference takes place on Saturday August 27th at Xavier University. For more information and how to register CLICK HERE. Lunch will be catered by J'anita's at the Rendon Inn and served up by my dear friends, J'anita's owners, Craig and Kim Giescke.

Finally, here's a sample of TCB's music as filmed by moderator Big Red Cotton:

 

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - Fiscal Follies (female) edition

Good morning, everyone!

Since Adrastos is busy with Rising Tide VI - Electric Boogaloo (shameless plug) and Kibitzer is still recovering from strolling into the iso chamber, noting the rotating red beacon lights, the warning sirens and the people rushing for the airlock in a frantic attempt to outrun the unleashed Freeper crazy - and then looking around saying "What's up?" while the toxic fumes engulfed him - I'd like to thank the erstwhile Elspeth Ravenwind (still sounds better than Wendy) for doing a yeowoman's job helping me get the insanity sponged off the walls.

Let's see what's cooking this week, shall we?

First of all - Freepers luvs them some Laura Ingraham.

I mean, luvs. 

Laura is on O'Reilly

Posted on Wednesday, September 02, 2009 7:49:33 PM by fatima

She is doing a great job and looks Beautiful.

1 posted on Wednesday, September 02, 2009 7:49:33 PM by fatima

Would you still love her if she looked Ugly?

To: fatima

She is one smart woman.

2 posted on Wednesday, September 02, 2009 7:51:40 PM by svcw (Legalism reinforces self-righteousness - it communicates to you the good news of your own goodness)

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To: fatima

She is doing a great job and looks Beautiful.

She always does...and always does...

 

3 posted on Wednesday, September 02, 2009 7:51:50 PM by jessduntno ("Integrity is the lifeblood of democracy. Deceit is a poison in it." - Ted Kennedy (D-HELL)

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To: SoCalPol

Thanks.That’s means she is on the rest of the week.:)Love Laura.

14 posted on Wednesday, September 02, 2009 8:13:25 PM by fatima (Free Hugs Today :))

Get the picture?

"I love Laura and she loves me - She's as brittle as she can beee"

.

Now?

Not so much.

Why?

Laura Ingraham pushes back on Sarah Palin primary threat Politico ^ | July 29, 2011 | ALEXANDER BURNS

Posted on Friday, July 29, 2011 4:00:56 PM by ejdrapes

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, one of the high-profile certified non-moderates urging the GOP to support John Boehner's debt ceiling bill, leveled criticism at Sarah Palin during today's show for raising the prospect of 2012 primary challenges to House Republicans.

***************

No, Larua thank god

You're going to Hell for failing to capitalize "God".  Just so ya know.

we have people who stand on principle. Most of the time that's the reason we get half a loaf.

Metamucil can help you with that.

If it wasn't for the grass roots we'd be totally screwed. I do agree with her though that throwing out primary challenge threats right now isn't helpful. I can't believe Palin really thinks someone like Paul Ryan or Alan West should be primaried because they're voting for Boehner 3.0. So I'm not sure who that challege was directed at.

1 posted on Friday, July 29, 2011 4:00:59 PM by ejdrapes

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To: ejdrapes

Ingraham argued in her broadcast that Palin's note was unhelpful to the GOP — and to the tea party

I have had about enough of Ingraham too.

 

Lindsey Graham's old girlfriend.

4 posted on Friday, July 29, 2011 4:04:40 PM by kcvl

.

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To: ejdrapes

Makin’ friends inside the beltway there Laura? Don’t let the cash trump the ol’ principles.

12 posted on Friday, July 29, 2011 4:07:48 PM by Invincibly Ignorant

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To: ejdrapes

Certified non-moderate?????????????????? The woman is a RINO!

The ultimate insult!! Could there be anything lower in the eyes of the Freeperati?

An unmarried RINO!

26 posted on Friday, July 29, 2011 4:13:15 PM by Doc Savage ("I've shot people I like a lot more,...for a lot less!" Raylan Givins)

 

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More of The Battle Of The Babes after the folded faces, with gratutious Allen West (remember when they loved him, too?) bashing.

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An open letter to Jessica King

Dear Jessica,

I don’t purport to speak for anyone but myself when it comes to your attempt to defeat Randy Hopper in this upcoming recall election. I don’t know if “a majority” of people agree with me or if people are “on my side” when it comes to this topic. However, as one voter (probably two, as The Missus and I actually agree for once), I wanted to let you know that we need you to be better than you’ve been. If your last run at this office is any indication, you probably need to listen to this. When you lose to a guy like Hopper by less than 200 votes, every vote counts.

I hate politics. I’m not keen on politicians. To me, they are like the dentist: you know they can do some good, but it’s likely they’ll hurt you and no one is really clamoring to deal with them. I almost married a city council rep once and listening to her and her friends chatter on and on about some Machiavellian maneuver they were planning to divide the city amongst themselves was exhausting to me. 

Still, when Hopper decided to screw this state, I figured it was time to screw him back. I signed the petition, voted for you in the primary and plan to vote again in the general.

Once the stage was set for your rematch, there was no holding Hopper and the Republicans back. Their ads attacking you were something to behold. The “63” ad, which PoliFact rated as “pants on fire,” was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. The Hopper camp’s rationale that even though you voted against the pay increase, you were complicit in taking it because you eventually voted for a budget stretches credibility.

Their God-awful mailer material about you being “wrong for Wisconsin” was despicable. And I don’t think they could have found a photo that made you look any more like a lesbian trying to take a shit and pass a pool ball if they actually had a look-a-like lesbian doing so.

That’s Randy Hopper.

That’s not you.

That’s why your campaign offends me.

In both a TV ad and a mailer, you’ve attacked Randy Hopper for not paying his taxes. This is like playing basketball with a toddler and calling her for travelling: If you’ve gotta reach that far to win, you’ve got a major problem.

You’re quoting a 3-year-old article from the Beaver County Tidbit and you’ve bent the truth so far, even PoliFact had to rethink its category for this. The reality is he didn’t owe taxes so he didn’t pay them. We can go around and around on that if we want, but he’s not on the “List of Shame” for the state and no one says he did anything wrong in balancing taxes versus tax breaks.

Worst of all, this stuff is coming directly from your campaign. It’s not some hatchet-job PAC that is working on your behalf. It’s you.

Randy Hopper’s record is horrific. The only way it could be worse is if he voted in favor of slavery and the legalization of child porn.

He did vote in favor of Scott Walker’s ass-raping of this state budget.

He has consistently been against Planned Parenthood.

He took collective bargaining rights away from state workers, even though they in no substantial way impacted the state budget.

If you want to kick him in the balls on the personal front, he was living outside of the district for a while, after his wife found out about his affair with a much younger woman.

He got his mistress a job with the state and got her a 35 percent pay increase. Best of all, she never actually applied for the job.

Various sources reported that Hopper’s own wife and maid had signed the recall petition against him.

In other words, you’ve got plenty of fertile ground regarding Randy Hopper’s idiocy without having to almost make shit up. As it stands, you’ve really not done much in convincing me that this guy is horrific for Wisconsin. You’ve also not told me SPECIFICALLY what you’ll do to fix this Republican clusterfuck.

As much as I don’t want Randy Hopper representing me, I don’t like the idea of voting for someone just because they’re not Randy Hopper. If that’s the best your campaign can do, I feel bad for you and sad for this state. Our elections can’t be like this scene from “Hot Tub Time Machine,” where we tell ourselves “You’re better than this guy! Not by a lot, but a little!”  You’re not The Violator.

People like me throw our hands up when we see a system like this. We decide it’s better not to participate than to cast our lot with the lesser of two evils.

We want you to be good, not just better than the other idiot.

We want you to stand for something, not pull a Scott Walker and innocuously hang back until you’re elected and THEN breakout the shit hammer.

We want you to lead. We want you to speak. We want you to act.

Absent that, we don’t want you.

And that’s not what you want.

You’ve got about two weeks left to show Wisconsin you are what we need. You can show me that you’re better than Hopper by a long shot. You can give me a reason to vote.

Pull the stupid ad. Cut down on the bullshit hyperbole. Shine a light on Hopper and watch him scurry away like a roach.

Then, tell me, “I’m Jessica King. Here’s my plan.”

Best of luck,

Doc

They Just Can't Help Themselves

Not a role model, people.

Greetings again from Wisconsin, where the Republican Party, not content with going after working people, public transit, schools, air, water, soil, arithmetic, logic, and compassion, has decided that yet another special interest group has it too easy.

Puppies.

You read that right.  Puppies.

State Representative and Beelzebub's Cabana Boy Don Pridemore (R-Heartless) has taken it upon himself to craft legislation that will ease restrictions on puppy mills.

Again, you read that right.  You see, in 2009, the Wisconsin Legislature, in an inexplicable fit of decency, decided that these motherfuckers who breed hundreds of dogs, but don't care for them properly, shouldn't be allowed to profit off of the misery of dear old Canis lupis familiaris.  So they enacted (by unanimous vote, for fuck's sakes) a law that made anyone who had more than 25 puppies at a time subject to state licensing, regulation, and fees.  Everyone was happy; it's not like the supply of dogs has dwindled, but the government actually did something to reduce the amount of cruelty in the world.  Also, dogs that are cared for well while they're puppies grow up into healthier, happier adult canines.  They require, on average, far less medical care over the course of their lives, which means significantly lower medical bills.  (Note to Republicans: The same principle works on humans as well.)  Seems like a success story, no?

Fast forward to 2011.  My, how times have changed.  Representative Pridemore--who, in an extra twist that's guaranteed to make Baby Jesus cry, was a co-sponsor of the 2009 bill--has since decided that we just can't have the heavy hand of government interfering in the glory and majesty of the Free Market.  So he's proposing that the number of dogs you can have before you're subject to licensing and such be raised from 25 to 100.  Has there been any public outcry in favor of easing these requirements?  No.  Is there any justifiable reason for doing this?  No.  Does Rep. Pridemore get a lot of campaign donations from dog breeder interests?  I don't know, but that might be a good thing for an enterprising journalist to look into.  If he does, this thing reeks of payback.  If he doesn't, he's just a cruel and stupid bastard who thinks that there should be more suffering in the world, and who has decided that his vote of less than two years ago was an affront to some misguided principle.   

Here's hoping that this thing dies before it reaches the governor's desk.  But with the way the Wisconsin GOP is dedicated to pissing off anyone who ever voted against them and chopping away at the very notion of a decent society, I can't be sure.  If you live in Wisconsin, call your state representative and senator and tell them that this kind of idiocy needs to disappear.  And tell them what you think about the rest of the ridiculous GOP proposals that have been and are being enacted this year.

Where's that goddamned meteor, anyway?

The Tide Is High

Time for a shameless plug for Rising Tide 6 coupled with a swell Blondie tune. There are two more days to register for the conference at the low, low price of 25 smackers. It goes up to $30 on 7/1, which is still a good deal.This year's conference will take place on Saturday August, 27 at Xavier University in NOLA.

If you're interested in registering, please click here:

 

How To Help ND Flooding Victims

Per Chet:

Donate to the local Red Cross here.

There are, as there are in every disaster, displaced animals all over the place. The Central Dakota Humane Society is here.

The town of Minot is expecting another two to three feet of water TODAY.

A.

David Simon to speak at Rising Tide 6

One of my dreams as a Rising Tide organizer has come true: Treme honcho David Simon will be speaking at the conference this year. If you can stand the heat and humidity of a NOLA summer, mark your calendars for Saturday August, 27. For more information, please click here.

How to Help Alabama & the South

While I was at a journalism panel listening to people talk about the future of news for rich people (see Twitter for my irritability and rage at the usual direction these things take), the earth caved in yesterday:

Gov. Robert Bentley said there are 131 confirmed fatalities from yesterday's deadly tornado outbreak.

"We do expect that number to rise today. In fact, we're sure it will," Bentley said in a news conference this morning.

"We had a major catastrophic event here in Alabama with the outbreak of numerous tornadoes. We do have major destruction in the state especially in north Alabama," Bentley said.

Bentley has activated 2,000 National Guard troops to help with search and rescue efforts.

Here's one way to pitch in. Post others in the comments. And if you're down there, let us know you're safe, and if you need anything.

A.

Creating a Space for Leadership

Student protesters marching down Langdon Street at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the Vietnam War era. UW Digital Collections

I wanted to follow up on something Jude touched on in his radio interview Monday, because it reminded me of a point Atrios made a few years back at a conference: That what we were trying to do, in the early days of blogging, was to create opportunities for our leaders to step up. I really took to that, all those years ago, the idea that maybe what we were doing was making a space for our politicians to safely step into, that we were showing the people in power that if they stood up for what they said they believed that we would be there, we would back them, that in some crazy sense it was okay and we would be there for them.

(How insane is that, by the way? I'm a girl with a web site, and I'm telling Harry Reid honey, it's all right, you can come out here with us?)

Then, of course, the war went on forever, and nobody did step up, and it became clear we were not only going to have to reinvent the media but reinvent our leaders as well and just plain do stuff ourselves because getting people elected to do what they said they wanted to do wasn't enough to get the stuff done, apparently. We created the spaces for them to step into. There is, and has been for years, a movement against the war in Iraq. There is, and has been for years, a movement against the war in Afghanistan. There is strong support for marriage equality, for reproductive choice, for collective bargaining rights, for all the things we hear on the nightly news are crazy lefty positions that are unrealistic.

Polling data tells us this, and we put ourselves out there in print and online and in the physical street to tell them this, and ... giant black hole. It's maddening, right? How everybody knows the right thing to do and nobody will do it? You couldn't have paid a Democrat with any name recognition to march with the anti-war activists. (Somebody might have a rude sign, of course.) While the Tea Party was feted by Republican royalty and Free Republic got a picnic on the White House lawn, Democrats cowered in their offices, afraid to join their base.

And then Wisconsin.

And people did step up.

Fourteen Senate Democrats did step up, and they said look at all these people in the Capitol who will love us if we listen to them. And as an added bonus what they're asking us to do is RIGHT. So let's do this. The Assembly Democrats did the same, fighting this bill not only every way that was reasonable and proper but fighting as if it truly mattered, fighting it every way they could. Hauling their desks out the windows so they could meet their constituents on the goddamn lawn.

And look what happened.

Yes, the bill passed anyway, bits of it. But Scott Walker's been kneecapped. He's a national joke. He can't go anywhere without being publicly reviled. His allies probably will be recalled. He probably will be, too. The bill's being challenged in court. Thousands and thousands of people across the country, in Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, are standing up. The Wisconsin 14 are national legends and local heroes, and most importantly, not a single person in Wisconsin, Republican OR Democrat, doubts what Democrats in Wisconsin stand for. They may not like it, but they know it for sure.

Imagine if Democrats in 2000, in 2002, in 2004, in 2010, had fought like that. Had fought to prevent the wars they later ran against not with everything that could be expected of them but with everything they had. Had fought the Bush tax cuts not with what was politically feasible but with what was possible, to the very extremity of what that word means. Imagine the place we'd be living in now. Imagine the things we would know.

And I guess the lesson I hope people with some modicum of power are taking from this, because I still have hope that somebody's taking a lesson despite years of getting it beaten into my head that our children is not learning, is that when you stand up things do happen. I get hardcore about this all the time on a personal, ordinary level, about how stupid it is to limit yourself when there's so much out there you can't control that limits you anyway, and expanding it out to the political level? See what happens when you tell the voices of reason to shut up and instead of doing what you want to do, do what you can do? See?

Thousands fill the Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda in protest of Gov. Scott Walker's "Budget Repair Bill" by Lacrossewi

See?

A.

How to Help, Japan and Hawaii Editions

Red Cross.

UNESCO, information and updates.

Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to help Japan.

Post other organizations, suggestions, etc in the comments.

A.

New Zealand Blues

While we've been focused on events in Wisconsin and the Middle East, there was a devastating earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. It's a beautiful city that's been knocked on its ass.  If you'd like to help,  here's a link to a TVNZ article that suggests groups to donate to.

I know: it's a case of so many good causes and so little money. I have a bad case of that myself but I have friends in New Zealand and a special fondness for its people and culture: especially the great musicians Tim and Neil Finn and Dave Dobbyn. Here's a Crowded House song in honor of those who perished in the Canterbury Earthquake of 2011:

 

 

Further Updates From Wisconsin's War On Workers

Do you really want this to be your model, Wisconsin?

Greetings all.  The more geographically inclined of you may recognize that the above map is of the state of Mississippi.  Or, you know, you could have just read it right off the map.  You people are clever like that.

Anyway, that's my home.  I was born in Biloxi (my French Creole ass), and spent most of my childhood on the Gulf Coast.  I lived so far south that you'd have to get your feet wet to get closer to the equator.  I, like a quarter of my fellow Magnolia staters at the time, grew up in poverty (Down to just one in five now!  Woo!).  I went to high school there, then got the hell out thanks to the US Navy.  But eventually, I returned (for a number of reasons too complicated to detail here) and went to college in Hattiesburg, MS.  Then I bagged ass again, and ended up in Wisconsin. 

Being from Mississippi is usually not something to brag about, because Mississippi is a national joke.  People in Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana are fond of saying "Thank God for Mississippi," which is kind of like a second-grade dropout teasing a first-grade dropout for being ignorant.  But you get the point.  It's America's third world.  It routinely comes in at or near dead last in all desirable measures of health, safety, prosperity, and, well, every goddamn thing.  Naturally, the state comes in at or near the top in all undesirable measures of the quality of life.  Sure, the food's great, and the musical legacy is incredible, but, you know, Muddy Waters can't make up for the fact that the state is 50th in median income and 1st in percentage of residents in poverty.  Funny how those two might go together like that.

Mississippi, though my home, is a shithole.  I know, I know.  Some of you are going to bitch about my casting aspersions at the place.  But I know the place.  I lived there for a long time, and I drove around that motherfucker, so I've seen lots of different corners of the state.  I've also read a metric butt-ton of literature that explains just how fucked the place is from the perspective of anyone who isn't already rich.  Now think--what sane, intelligent person wants to take Mississippi as a model?

If you said "Scott Walker," you're wrong.  He's not sane or intelligent.  But he does want to make this state into Wississippi, so give yourself partial credit.  By busting up unions and giving the state over to businesses that are free to rape the hell out of the land, water, and laborers, he wants to recreate the conditions of the good ol' Hospitality State right here. 

If he starts importing fire ants, I'm issuing a general call to arms. 

Now--regarding yesterday's gigantic demonstrations.  I've seen estimates that the anti-retrograde, pro-human crowd numbered from 60,000 to 80,000.  I believe we'll get a more reliable estimate in a day or two.  The tea party bootlickers were here as well, and if there were 2,000 of them, I'd be impressed.  They just didn't show up in force.  No one saw Breitbart, although he may have been distracted by one of our many lovely taverns (yes, that's a cheap shot), and Sarah Palin couldn't be bothered to make a trip where there wasn't a substantial honorarium involved (that's not really a cheap shot at all).  

And even though they were small in number, those motherfuckers were MAD, son.  I haven't seen a group of white folks that pissed off since the OJ verdict.  That said, I only saw one instance of someone losing his cool.  It happened when some of the anti-worker folks were marching around with us--which, you know, more power to them; I wouldn't want to be the one union advocate surrounded by 1,000 tea partiers.  Well, one of the pro-human protesters called a tea party guy an asshole, which really wasn't called for.  And the person so insulted kind of lost his shit (he was wearing a Green Bay Packers shirt, so he apparently has no concept of irony).  The mad tea party dude started walking toward the guy who insulted him, yelling loudly and gesticulating pretty intently.  But a number of people got in between them and cooled the guy out a bit.  Then the cops pulled the tea party guy aside and told him to chill out.  No arrest was made, and no one was ever touched.

So that's the extent of the unrest that I saw.  The angry guy's buddy was walking next to me, so I started talking to him (I was carrying a sign that said "Veterans for Labor" and wearing an old uniform cap, so I figured I could get away with chatting to anyone).  He was a nice enough guy, but angry because he thought public sector workers were overcompensated regarding pay and benefits.  So I just, you know, talked with him.  He was pretty misinformed about what public workers actually get, and I told him what I knew about my profession, the state of  public employees in general, and the importance of collective bargaining.  It was a nice, polite, peaceful exchange.  I told him that I appreciated him being there, and that I wanted good things for him in his workplace, as well.  Actually, I said that to a number of counter-protesters yesterday.

I don't know if I reached him at all.  He'd been pretty thoroughly lied to, and was envious of what he thought were unjustified perks for public union workers.  So I asked him this--instead of wondering why I do have something, why don't you wonder why you don't?  Yes, that's Athenae's constant refrain here, and I shamelessly appropriated it for myself.  I told him that I wanted him to have a good pension and benefits, and that stripping it away from one group doesn't do anything to make anyone better--it just increases the misery in the world, and elevates no one.  I let him know that I wanted the good things--the roses, not just the bread--for all workers, and that if we all acted in concert, we had a better chance to secure those blessings.

Again, I don't know if I made an impact yesterday, either marching or talking with individuals.  But I'd rather try and fail than sit on my ass and do nothing. 

I'll be back today.  The weather is a crappy wintry mix today, so there will probably be fewer protesters out in that mess.  But come find me if you're here. 

UPDATE:  FUCK YEAH CHARLES WOODSON!  Now tell Aaron Rodgers to get on board.

Something You Can Do to Change the Conversation

Reader Sue sent this idea along. If businesses don't have demand for their products, it doesn't really matter what happens to their taxes because they won't have the money to pay anybody anything. So if you support the rights of unions to organize, in Wisconsin or in your state, you can send your favorite local business the following letter:

Wisconsin’s week in review

To quote Alec Baldwin from “State and Main” after the traffic crash: “So, that happened…”

I spent the beginning of the week explaining the reason behind this debacle in a simple way: The Democrats care too much about what everyone thinks while the Republicans don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks. I ended the week finding that only half of that is really true. The Democrats actually did something we didn’t see coming. They put their hand into the bag and took out a stone and slung it. Whether it topples the Philistine remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the Republicans figure this will end quickly once the Dems run out of 8-tracks to listen to near Bloomington-Normal or when Mark Miller drinks one Vanilla McShake too many and fumigates the VW Vanagon.

While Athenae is making up here “Run, Sconnie, Run!” shirts, here’s a brief look at the weirdness you deal with when you a) can think, b) are a state worker and c) have crazy-ass friends all over the political spectrum:

Dispatches From Wisconsin's Class War

Bread and roses. And collective bargaining.

Hello hello faithful readers.  I've been part of this truly glorious stand in Madison for the last week.  And, well, what to say?  It's heartening and wonderful to see regular people finally say ya basta and stand up for themselves.  The new governor here really stuck his dick in a hornet's nest, and he's too dumb to pull it out and run for the medicine cabinet. 

Readers here are probably aware of what's been going on.  What started as a smallish protest on Monday has exploded.  25,000 people--not just from Madison, but from all over the state--were here on Thursday.  And word on the street is that even more will be here today.  Buses are coming from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kansas, Nebraska, and lots of other places--buses packed with regular Americans who just can't stand another assault by the billionaires.  The state's Democratic senators lammed it to Rockford, IL, so that the governor's odious and misnamed "Budget Repair Bill" wouldn't pass without the people getting a chance to voice their concerns. 

The crowds have been amazing.  Cops, teachers, firefighters, students from all educational levels, clerks, secretaries, iron workers, builders, and plenty of non-union workers who have no desire to see their fellow Sconnies take another rich fist in the ass have been out peacably every day to let themselves be heard.

And, finally, people are noticing.  It took three days of massive and peaceful citizen demonstration, but the national press is finally here.  (I'm not going to get sidetracked by bitching that anytime you get six assholes on scooters with teabags hanging off of their hats, you need sunglasses for the kleig lights.  Oh no.)  Rachel Maddow is the first person I've seen draw a straight line from the governor's proposal to Citizens United.  I figured that shit out on Monday, but I don't have a goddamn TV show, so I wasn't able to take to the airwaves.  A lot of the national press initially and completely missed the point, but there's evidence that some outlets are starting to understand that this isn't teachers pissed about a benefit cut--it's people, lots of people, mad as hell about another assault by the real "haves" on everyone else in the state. 

These protests have been passionate and energetic, but, even in a crush of 20,000 bodies, there's never been any sense of danger.  Some local businesses have donated free food and water.  The AFL-CIO and some of the building trades have been handing out enough bratwursts to give headaches to cardiologists.  And the cops--the cops have been marvelous.  Unlike The Greatest And Only Real Protests That Ever Happened I Mean The Sixties Man When There Was Real Love And All, there's no antagonism between protesters and cops.  Hell, some of the protesters are cops.  Because they know that they're in this, too.

It's fucking beautiful.  And some of the rich folks must feel an uncomfortable sensation in their guts, one they haven't felt for a long time.  What is that, rich folks?  Gastroenteritis?  Mudbutt?  No, motherfuckers, that's fear.  You're worried.  You might still win this one.  The deck is stacked heavily in your favor; it always is.  But when everyone says enough, you can't beat, fire, or imprison them all.

And you know, maybe they will win.  I don't like getting hopeful; I've lived long enough and in enough wrong places to be intimately familiar with crushing disappointment.  Maybe this is the last gasp of a dying moment, the final paroxysm before the blood gets completely sucked out of the workers of America.  But god damn it, if that's the case, I'm happy we're gong down fighting.  And lest you think I'm overly pessimistic, please note that it seems there is a chance here to do something remarkable.  I don't want to go full metal hippie on anyone, but there's something in the air.

Conspicuously absent from any of this:  "leaders."  The highest-profile sympathetic politician here to date was the Mayor of Madison.  And when he arrived, people acted like he'd just won the Super Bowl and beaten the alien invasion at the same time.  We have seen no US Representatives or Senators.  No one from the Obama administration has dared show up.  The only person approaching a celebrity that has appeared is Ed Schultz.  As usual, the people lead, and the leaders follow.  I think it's safe to show your faces now, O Corageous Heroes Of The Left.  Don't worry.  We've already prepared the ground.

I'll be back out there this afternoon with the indefatigable Scout, recording more facts, feelings, and images.  Solidarity, brothers and sisters.  And enjoy this hippie music:

 

That's all the hippie stuff you'll get from me today, I promise.  And sorry about all the tags; this shit covers a lot of ground.

Guns, Guns, GUNS!

The screeds about “inalienable rights” and gun control have been enough to make my brain bleed lately. We have 27 amendments to the constitution, all of which tell us something about our rights. That doesn’t even count all the shit in the constitution itself. And yet, here we are. Again. Talking about the Second Amendment. Again.

There’s apparently no good time to talk about guns in our society. When people are complaining about Jared Loughner and his whack-job antics, they are accused of “politicizing a tragedy.” Unfortunately, we tend to have too many gun tragedies to ever have a socially acceptable point in time to talk about this stuff. However, on the rare occasion that we’re not dealing with a tragedy involving a gun and people try to talk about guns, they are told it’s not the right time. After all, nothing bad has happened recently with guns, so trying to limit them in some way will just rankle the NRA crowd. Someone get Joseph Heller on the phone…

Anyway, instead of turning this into a rambling screed of its own about guns (which I don’t understand the value of) or personal freedom (which I don’t think we pay enough attention to), here’s an attempt at peace in our time. Here’s a shit ton of stuff you can do that is “inalienable,” guaranteed by our founding fathers and that doesn’t involve a weapon that can be used to slay 6 people and injure a dozen more in a matter of seconds:

- Say a prayer for Gabrielle Giffords and ask that she recover for the sake of herself, her family and our country. Or, if you don’t believe in religion, don’t do anything. You’ve got that right as well.

- Hire a lawyer just because you can. You have the right to counsel. Talk about the weather, taxes or if the Brewers new pitching rotation will get them over the hump this year. Leave a couple C-notes on the nightstand and feel good about yourself.

- Refuse to paint the garage this weekend. Remind your significant other that slavery has been abolished. Then, go sleep in the garage for a week until your spouse forgives you.

- Roll up on a battalion of Marines, flip them all the bird and scream, “I don’t have to quarter you! I don’t have to quarter you!”

- If you are of a non-white race, go vote for something. If you are a woman, do that too. If you are a minority woman, vote twice. If you are in Chicago, vote multiple times after you’re dead.

- Pay your fucking income taxes. If you’re so excited about your right to bear arms, pony up for the check. The amendments can’t be a Chinese Buffet of rights. You can’t have any pudding until you eat your meat.

- Go have a drink. You can. It’s legal. If you’re 21. Or you’re not in Utah. (I only made up part of this.)

- Petition your government for the redress of grievances. I’ve already written my letter to the president asking that LeBron James have his ACLs removed in a manner commensurate with the surgery scene in “Law Abiding Citizen.”

- Write a comment here and yell at me for this. It’s free speech. Or freedom of the press. Or some other freedom we tend to overlook when it doesn’t involve the extraction of a weapon from Charlton Heston’s cold dead hands…

Another Thanks to the Warmth Project Donors

Here's a warm fuzzy for this Wednesday morning: A thank-you letter from the Village Pantry, for which we raised funds prior to the holidays. I kept meaning to post it but then the scanner went on the fritz and iPhoto was being a pain in the ass and now it's all straightened out so:

Well done, blog.

A.

First Draft Warmth Project: We're From The Internet. We're Here to Help.

Or something along those lines is what I told the Evergreen Park folks this morning when I dropped off 30-plus coats, heavy sweaters, fleecy things, warm fuzzies and all, at the Evergreen Park Community Center, along with a check for $360 for the village food pantry. According to the folks doing intake, that'll be enough to buy food worth 16 times that. Their coat drive ended well, too, despite its rocky beginnings: 300-plus coats. The newspaper story that inspired us inspired a lot of other people to dig through their closets and find room to make others warm.

 
Coats. LOTS of coats. There were coats in the back seat, too. My house looked like the Burlington Coat Factory crossed with that Hoarders show. It was awesome.

One of the things I really admire about all of you is that faced with the opportunity to despair, you pick up and work. You find something to do. You hammer away on your part of the world and make it into a new shape. Don't ever think that's nothing. You gave a lot of people a warm holiday today. Thank you all.

A.

Black Friday Alternatives

All right, who out there among our readership makes things, sells things, can link us to a storefront so we can look at your wares? I'm always up for getting presents from someone I know instead of a giant store.

Think of this as a store-whoring thread.

A.

Warmth Project Update: How Hard You All Rock (and a Deadline)

My bedroom is starting to look like some kind of Coat Sorting Warehouse.

As of today, we have 23 coats (including heavy-duty fleece things as well as some nice puffy adult and kid coats) and a little more than $300 in the coat and food pantry fund!

I called down to Evergreen Park today, and we'd like to drop the stuff off next Tuesday morning. So if you've been waiting to give until the end, this is it. One week!

Guys, you're gonna keep lots of people warm and fed this winter. Amazing job. Thank you so much for giving me yet more reasons to brag that First Draft has the best readers on the Internet.

A.

He walked in circles till he was crazy and he lived that way forever

We drove past this hellhole on I-10 the way to and from Rising Tide.

We live in a country where slackjawed yokels pass a bill banning Sharia law in fucking Oklahoma but inhumane idiot shit like this is still legal. 

I know that fighting individual instances of stuff like this is time-consuming and is not as efficient a strategy as taking aim at the bigger regulatory picture, but if you can please help. 

Big Cat Rescue

Change.org

First Draft Warmth Project: Week 2 Update

As of this update, we're at $236 raised for the food and clothing collection in Evergreen Park.

We also have a dozen coats, ranging from midweight fleece things to some really nice heavyweight kids' coats:

The project continues; I'll update once a week until the end of the month. The temperature's dropping. The need won't be going away. Even leaving aside the idea that any of the courses of action recommended by the feed-the-rich, starve-the-poor, hey-nobody's-complaining-so-far crowd will actually improve the economy, it sure as hell ain't gonna happen before the snow is knee high.

Got a coat? Drop me an e-mail. Got a couple bucks? Throw them at the jar with "coats" in the comment box. Doc is collecting some coats to deliver over Thanksgiving, I'm going to be picking some up in Chicago and Madison over the next couple weekends, so ask your friends and family if they've got a spare sitting in the closet and we'll figure out how to railroad it on down to the folks who need it.

And thank you to everybody who's contributed so far. This is a tough time. We can't all do everything. But enough of us can do a little, that it adds up to a lot.

A.

Take Minks Off

Don't make Ernie show you his pimp hand. That motherfucker brings his rings.

Have you seen about our coat project? Well then ante up, motherfuckers. If you don't have a coat to send, make a donation. Just add something along the lines of "COATS, BITCHES" as a message so we know exactly what it's for.

Don't Let Go The Coat

We here at First Draft practice irony on a daily basis. Hence, this post title when we're simultaneously asking you to literally let go the coat or your wallet and donate to the First Draft warmth project.

 

Hmm, I wonder if Roger still has that scarf? 

First Draft Warmth Project: FINAL DAY TODAY

Coats and cash for the chilly and hungry get delivered tomorrow, folks. Read more here.

A.

Still Mad? Still Scared? Still Worried? GOOD. Do Something With It.

COATS, people.

I always say when people ask if I prefer winter or summer that winter's much easier to take. In summer, it gets hot, you can only take off so many layers in public before you get arrested. Winter, you can always put on another sweater.

Assuming you have one, that is: 

Evergreen Park's annual coat drive typically provides outerwear for hundreds of needy people, but this year's collection is lagging far behind previous years.

"I only have 20 coats," Jim Feltz, director of the village's youth commission, said. "We usually have 100 or so."

This story wound up in my inbox Wednesday when I was looking for something to direct our attention toward in order to make a world that had just gotten a little bit darker brighter again. Evergreen Park's on the southwest side of Chicago, in an area hit hard by the manufacturing decline and the continued insistence of our bankster masters that things are getting better. Like most Illinois suburbs, it's seen a dramatic increase in the need at its social service sites and in poverty in general. Like most places everywhere, there are people that need taking care of.

So: got a coat you ain't using? A nice thick sweater, sweatshirt, fleece thing? Throw it in a flat-rate Priority Mail box or in a puffy envelope and send it to the community center:

Clean coats, jackets and sweaters can be dropped off from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays at the Evergreen Park Community Center, 3450 W. 97th St., [Evergreen Park, IL 60805] through the end of the month, Feltz said.

Local, in southeastern Wisconsin/northeastern Illinois? E-mail me at athenae25 at yahoo.com and we'll figure out a pickup. E-mail/Facebook your friends and relatives and get a few coats together. I'm personally bugging everyone I know so we can bring in a big pile prior to Thanksgiving.

Don't want to mail outerwear? Feel silly? Don't have extra coats but do have extra cash? Awesome. Hit up the tip jar with "COATS" in the comments box. They're also collecting to stock the food pantry for the holidays (and every day thereafter) and could use the money to buy food. We'll drop off the coats AND a nice check.

Last week was one of those times when, trolls' contentions about our awesome Internet powers aside, it seems as if there's just too much misery and stupidity to really make any kind of difference. Left alone, that's the sort of feeling leads to impotent frustration, teawad rage, unplugging and dropping out. So let's do this. Here in Chicago, it's getting cold out there.

Let's keep some people warm.

A.

The Kids are alright!

 

Sorry for breaking out of my cage, but I thought we could all use some good news this morning.

At the end of September, I received a notification from donorschoose.org that a Journalism class needed help to buy a decent digital SLR camera. Donorschoose offered $25 in matching funds, so I donated more in the name of First Draft.

Got this today:

Dear Tommy, 

We are honestly completely overwhelmed and excited about the new camera we received last week. in just this short amount of time, I have seen a dramatic increase in the students' enthusiasm for journalism and the quality of pictures. I know that our October newspaper issue (and all future issues) will be far superior to anything we have created in the past. It only through your generosity that we have been able to achieve this feat and I am able to keep the journalistic spark alive in our high school. Please believe me when I say this is the kindest gift our class has ever received. Thank you again for your donation!

With gratitude,
Mrs. B.

Sep 25 Tommy from Texas

"Class - the camera doesn't lie. Now go out and capture the truth."

Bigger Photos

Preaching to the choir

Hmm, can an atheist like me do such a thing? Sure, when it's a godless commie pinko librul choir. My friend RCB at used to be disgusted has posted an excellent list of reasons you might should vote Dem:

If you see the long-term problem with a philosophy that says “Economy going well? Cut taxes!” and “Economy going poorly? Cut taxes!” Vote Dem.

If you disagree that separation of Church and state is mainly associated with Hitler, Vote Dem.

If you don’t think you should have to subscribe to the fire department in the first place, Vote Dem.

If you think President Reagan’s budget director knows what he’s talking about, Vote Dem.

If you don’t like the idea of your Congressman spending weekends dressing up like a Nazi, Vote Dem.

If you don’t think the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell judge is as dangerous to America as Al-Qaeda, Vote Dem.

If you don’t think that our country would be better off eliminating federal student loans and Pell grants, Vote Dem.

If the fact you “haven’t seen a half-monkey, half-person yet” doesn’t quite disprove evolution, Vote Dem.

If you don’t think it’s a good idea to totally eliminate the minimum wage, Vote Dem.

If you don’t think a guy pitching “post-apocalypse” food is the best guy to trust about the present, Vote Dem.   

Please Vote

The outlook isn't great for our side but, hey, the Dems can hold the Senate and obstruct the hell out of the Goopers for two years. I'm hoping that there will be some pleasant surprises but it's hard not to be gloomy when candidates as good as Russ Feingold and Joe Sestak are on the ropes.

I'll be off to vote against Bitter Vitter in an hour or so. I don't expect long lines because folks in Orleans Parish have got the blue in a red state blues. Oh well, the Dems are likely to pickup the Louisiana Second District seat, which is better than nothing.

I'll let Bette Davis have the last word:

 

It has to...

This has to stop.

It has to stop right fucking now.

It has to.

Someone has to tell these kids who think it’s cute to harass gay kids to fucking knock it off. There has to be consequences for this and it can’t just be a “oh well, I guess we’ll give them a dorm demerit” or some fucking stupid thing. It can’t be an “invasion of privacy” suit that will almost certainly result in probation, if anything.

It has to be severe.

It has to say, “You do this and we will penalize you so fucking badly that you will wish you had died as a child.”

It has to be on par with our penalties for hate crimes.

It has to demonstrate that we, as a society, view things like this as being no less vitriolic than race-based hatred or gender-based hatred.

It has to.

Someone needs to tell high schools, universities and colleges that they need to put forth stronger and stronger initiatives to stop this kind of thing from happening. It’s not good enough to have an “awareness week” every so often that tells people that “the gays” won’t give you “the cooties” and then lets the campus move on to “left-handed dentists named Ted awareness week.” There needs to be a comprehensive plan for eliminating hatred on campus, akin to Dan Savage’s approach.

It has to tell people that we are serious about how we treat one another.

It has to help break a trend in which gay, bisexual and transgendered teens are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts. Data suggests that for every suicide, there are between 100 and 200 attempts.  

It has to be something that doesn’t coddle the offenders but doesn’t infantilize those perceived as different.

It has to.

Someone needs to tell the media to stop writing shit stupid stories that start like a fucking Seinfeld routine about airline peanuts. This isn’t a trend story, asshole. There’s not a critical mass of dead gay kids that have to crop up before we start viewing this as serious. One kid is enough, gay, straight, black, white, whatever. How many do you need before you stop writing about Lindsey Lohan going to jail of which Hollywood twerp Jennifer Anniston is blowing this week?

A story on this needs to examine the underlying causes of the problem and provide information from people who know something and can give us answers, even if those answers are incomplete.

It has to go beyond the three phone calls you make to get the coroner’s official cause of death, the university PR twit’s “We are heartbroken” bullshit line they’ve got as a MSWord macro on their keyboard and a quote from a kid who sat near the victim in econ class and “didn’t know him all that well.”

It has to show over and over again that this isn’t just a random set of events, leading to the suicide of an unstable kid.

It has to follow the public health model of journalism that got us vaccines, automobile safety and higher-order crime reporting.

It has to provide value.

It has to.

Someone needs to tell these kids, kids like Tyler Clementi, kids like Raymond Chase, kids like Seth Walsh, kids like Billy Lucas and all the other kids who feel like they need to die just to stop the dervish of horror that it will get better.

They need to know that there are assholes everywhere and that high school sucks for everyone.

They need to know that someone, somewhere is going through exactly what they are and that it will not always be this bad.

They need to understand that they are stronger than they think they are.

They need to feel the power of persistence, the power of defiance and the power of self.

They need to know that they are not alone.

They need to know that we all need them here and we need them alive.

Someone has to do this.

I have to. You have to.

We all have to.

First Draft Fundraising: Claire in Hat Achieved!

Thank you all for supporting the work we do, and for making this possible:

She's totally grateful to you. You can tell.

Glamour shot of Riot under the cut.

First Draft Fundraising Day Three

Thank you to everyone who's donated so far, and to everyone who's linked. If you haven't yet contributed, consider supporting what we do here. We only bug you for ourselves once a year. The rest of the time it's all crack vans and pet pictures and cock jokes, and you know that's worth throwing some dough in the kitty, right? 

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First Draft Fundraising Day Two

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

New posts begin below this one. If you enjoy what you read here, consider hitting the tip jar to support our work. You don't want the ferrets tricking for hosting fees: 

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Our Pelicans Have Landed!

So there was a mix-up at the International Bird Rescue Research Center, and our pelicans couldn't be found. Turned out they had holed up in the back of the pelican pen and were discussing the world's affairs over merlot and M&Ms, hitting F5 on the crack van and one of them might or might not have started a dice game with some finches. When asked about it, he muttered something about "punch3 kitten chainsaw" and flapped off. Kids today.

In any case, the birds we adopted as a blog, way back in the early days of the BP Oil Spill, were located, tagged, and we have now been presented with evidence they exist:

All our pelicans are here: LaDonna, Ashley, UncleSamRocks, FYYFF and Albert Lambreaux. And we even have pictures of the cute little buggers:

FYYFF looks just like his namesake.

Well done, everyone. 

A.

Rising Tide 5

It's hard to believe but the fifth annual Rising Tide Conference is just around the corner. First Draft's very own Scout Prime suggested the idea for the first one and a bunch of NOLA bloggers took the ball and ran with it. If you're interested in learning more, head over to risingtidenola.com. The conference will be held Saturday 8/28 at the Howlin' Wolf in New Orleans. If you can't attend we accept donations as well. Holy pledge week, Batman.

We'll have all sorts of interesting and, hopefully, entertaining content planned. I'll be moderating the annual politics panel, which thus far features the dean of NOLA political punditry, Clancy DuBos and Jason (Ashe Dambala) Berry of American Zombie fame. I'm already working on the diaper jokes. Last year I called David Vitter a "human cockroach" because of his survival skills and the bastard, alas,remains ahead in the polls.

Here's this year's poster, which was done  for the fourth year in a row by Greg (Suspect Device) Peters:

The Economy

In case anybody's wondering people are still pretty well fucked out here.

If you've got extra cash, Libby and Driftglass could use support. Susie's fundraiser's going on. I know there are others, those are just the ones off the top of my head, so post yours or others in the comments and we'll make this the official OMFG FUCKING ECONOMY thread.

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Blog for Birds Results: Pelicans Adopted, Named!

Drum roll please ... tonight a little more than $1,200 was sent to the International Bird Rescue Center, courtesy of you fine people. And the request was made for the following pelican names:

Scout

FYYFF

UncleSamRocks

Ashley

Albert Lambreaux

LaDonna

(There was a tie at press time between Maddow and LaDonna and I figured after the week our girl had last week on Treme, she needed the Pelican more.) 

I really can't emphasize enough how hard you all rocked this project. Usually when we do something like this I try to send everybody who donated an e-mail. This time, around the second day it became a positive blizzard of donations, as small as $2, as large as $100, and the e-mail got away from me completely. But know that each of you is a part of this, and a small part of the enormous effort going on to safeguard and clean up the Gulf.

You're good people. I'm proud to know you.

A.